The following findings are published by Dr David Patrick who is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, working at the University of the Free State (South Africa). He was awarded his PhD (History) in 2013 from the University of Sheffield, for his thesis, "Framing Disinterest: Anglo-American Press Responses to The Holocaust, Bosnia and Rwanda." His primary research interests concern framing (of various issues) within the British press, and his current research analyses how the Scottish independence referendum has been covered by a selection of established titles in the months leading to the historic vote.

POLICE have been called in to ­investigate allegations Better Together agents breached election law by viewing postal votes to discover how well the No campaign was doing in the weeks before the referendum poll closed.

We’ve known and documented for some time now that Scottish Labour’s attitude towards “foreigners” is, well, let’s be super-generous and say “ambiguous”. But this photo from nine days ago made even us take a sharp breath.

Labour are going to focus on reaching out to disillusioned traditional Labour supporters who voted Yes in the Scottish referendum. Three of the four local authorities where a majority supported ind...

Peter A Bell's insight:

Those "senior Scottish Labour figures" are a bit late listening to people's concerns now. They spent the entire referendum campaign refusing to listen. They allied themselves with the Tories and other even more detestable parties and groups to browbeat, bully, deceive and intimidate the people of Scotland into throwing away a real opportunity to make Scotland a better country.

Curran and her despicable, deceitful, dishonest ilk seem to think we will all just forget how they behaved during the referendum campaign. They seriously imagine they will not be held to account by Scotland's voters. We get this from these self-serving nonentities all the time. The line is, "We know we failed you on every single occasion in the past, but we've changed and it will be different next time. Honest!". Who the hell is going to fall for that?

Curran is right about one thing. Scotland is divided. It is divided between those who regard it as a country and those who would make it no more than a region of Greater England. It is divided between those who seek real progressive change and those who pay lip service to the idea of change whilst fighting tooth and nail to preserve the old order and the old ways.

Scotland is divided between the political elites of the British state and the people. Margaret Curran and British Labour have declared their allegiance to the British state. They have rejected the people. Let the people respond accordingly.

Displayed in the main reception room of Bute House is Sir James Gunn's painting of the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Thomas Johnston.

Peter A Bell's insight:

Do you think maybe David Torrance is seriously pissed off at being excluded from Alex Salmond's resignation press conference? This whole article fairly oozes petulant spitefulness. Hell hath no fury like a self-important hack scorned.

The fact that Torrance has to reach for a towering figure of Scottish politics such as Tom Johnston in order to show Salmond in a comparatively bad light is actually something of a compliment to the soon-to-be former First Minister. For the rest, his assessment of the man is no more than a catalogue of nit-picking plaints and petty sniping.

Along with the vast majority of his colleagues in the London-based media, Torrance makes the foolish error of imagining that people in Scotland are as obsessed with Alex Salmond as they are. In the case of Salmond's admirers and supporters, these denizens of the metropolitan meeja bubble translate that admiration and support through the filter of their own obsession and come up with unthinking adulation. While any dislike for Salmond is magnified by the prejudices of the British media elite into an equally mindless hatred.

The reality is far more mundane. The idea of Salmond as an object of cult hero-worship is distinctly ludicrous. As is the caricature of him as a despised figure of hate. The fact is that Alex Salmond is a very ordinary man with some mildly extraordinary political talents. Some people like him for his ordinariness. Others detest him for the genuine political abilities by which their own poor efforts are judged.

Much of what Torrance says about Salmond in his nasty, unseemly little diatribe is undoubtedly true - if grotesquely exaggerated. The point that Torrance misses is that most of us know all of this already. And we don't f***ing care!

We have never thought of Salmond as some kind of super-hero. Few of us have been taken in by the media's attempts either to demonise the man or to put him on a pedestal the better to knock him down. We just aren't bothered whether he is likeable or not. Our only concern was that he should be good at his job.

No doubt Tom Johnston had his faults as well. After all, he was nothing if not a wily political operator in much the same way that Salmond is. Johnston has the advantage that his human foibles and failings are obscured by the mists of time and hagiography, while Salmond's unremarkable defects are there to be pored over and hyperbolised by graceless little twerps such as David Torrance.

In the end, it is Torrance himself who is diminished by this pouty, fractious attempt at a hatchet job. Alex Salmond remains a man of substance.

With respect to new powers, there is a trust problem for the three main devolution parties. STUC itself was highly critical of the timing and presentation of the devolution proposals and the Vow. This mistrust of government is not confined to the 45% yes voters in the referendum.

Know that you are not alone in your feelings of desoltation, anger, disbelief and betrayal over the outcome of the Scottish Independence Referendum. I too am in many ways ashamed and embarassed for Scotland.

THE three Unionist parties were last night at each other's throats over constitutional reform, as a row over "English votes for English laws" threatened to derail the timetable for more devolution that was promised after a No vote.

Peter A Bell's insight:

The reality is that there never was a "devo pact". There was just a gaggle of British politicians making whatever noises they thought necessary to dupe or scare people into voting No. There was no formal agreement. There were no actual powers on offer. There never was any "guarantee". The "timetable" was utterly meaningless. The whole thing was a rather clumsy exercise in political smoke and mirrors. But it was enough to sway the timorous and the gullible.

Against reason and against the lessons of history, many people allowed themselves to be persuaded that another round of constitutional tinkering might actually be both possible and effective in delivering a satisfactory constitutional settlement for Scotland.

Let's not mince words. These people are fools. Many have realised already just how foolish they have been. Over the coming weeks and months it will become increasingly difficult for others to avoid the same conclusion.

We should harbour no bitterness towards those No voters who realise their error. After all, they were subject to the full weight of the British establishment - politicians, media and big business - all telling the to be afraid and plying them with shiny baubles that looked for all the world like firm commitments to those with no time to examine them due to having important soap-operas to watch.

When I hear politicians asserting that an issue has been settled "for a generation", I reach for my bag of salt. That's been the mutual line of David Cameron and Ed Miliband since they learned that the Scots had decided against divorce. Done and dusted, put to bed, settled "for a generation". On that, at least, the Tory and Labour leaders are agreed. Alex Salmond has put ice on the bun of pro-union politicians by stepping down as SNP leader and suggesting that he does not expect to see another independence referendum in his lifetime.

Magnus Gardham neatly sums up the two different stories of the referendum depending on which side of the argument you are on. What he fails to note is that the Yes story is based on facts and reasonable supposition while the No story is entirely founded on delusion and lies.

The "intimidating" Yes campaign is entirely a product of the British state's propaganda machine aided and abetted by that other pillar of the British establishment, the mainstream media. The reality is that in almost all verifiable incidents of harassment or actual violence the perpetrators were part of the British nationalist mob whipped up by the ugly hatemongering of certain elements of the British press.

The threat to the NHS, on the other hand, is all too real. And reports of new finds and technological advances extending the life of Scotland's oil industry are perfectly credible.

The idea that the referendum result constitutes a resounding endorsement of the union is highly dubious. Desperately as British nationalists might strive to air-brush them out of the picture, the 45% who voted Yes constitutes a massive rejection of the union. And even the 55% who voted No looks rather less impressive when one considers that most of them did so because they had been duped into believing that they too were voting against the union as it is presently constituted.

The anti-independence campaign was always riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Nothing has changed since Thursday 18 September. Now we have unionists whining about demands for another referendum and demanding that politicians get back to the business of running country. They do so evidently oblivious to the fact that there is nothing more fundamental in politics than the constitution.

And unionists bleat about a so-called "neverendum" apparently dumbly unaware that they themselves are commending a course of interminable constitutional tinkering. The ink was hardly dry on the original legislation setting up the Scottish Parliament when the inadequacies of the settlement forced the British parties to set up the Calman Commission. Before the Calman proposals were even fully implemented the British parties were once again obliged to admit that they'd got it wrong and we had another spate of talking-shops cobbling together an incomprehensible, incoherent and largely unworkable mish-mash of constitutional sticking plasters and wire coat-hangers.

And now we have yet another talking-shop tasked with trying to come up with a set of proposals that at least make some sort of constitutional sense and have the appearance of offering meaningful reform.

This latest talking-shop will fail just as its predecessors did. It will fail because, like those went before, its overarching imperative is, not the formulation of a constitutional settlement that addresses the needs, aspirations and priorities of the people of Scotland, but the preservation of the structures of power and privilege which define the British state.

Whichever story of the referendum you choose to accept, one thing is perfectly clear. That story is still being written. This is not over. It will not be over until Scotland's rightful constitutional status is restored.

Magnus Gardham neatly sums up the two different stories of the referendum depending on which side of the argument you are on. What he fails to note is that the Yes story is based on facts and reasonable supposition while the No story is entirely founded on delusion and lies.

The "intimidating" Yes campaign is entirely a product of the British state's propaganda machine aided and abetted by that other pillar of the British establishment, the mainstream media. The reality is that in almost all verifiable incidents of harassment or actual violence the perpetrators were part of the British nationalist mob whipped up by the ugly hatemongering of certain elements of the British press.

The threat to the NHS, on the other hand, is all too real. And reports of new finds and technological advances extending the life of Scotland's oil industry are perfectly credible.

The idea that the referendum result constitutes a resounding endorsement of the union is highly dubious. Desperately as British nationalists might strive to air-brush them out of the picture, the 45% who voted Yes constitutes a massive rejection of the union. And even the 55% who voted No looks rather less impressive when one considers that most of them did so because they had been duped into believing that they too were voting against the union as it is presently constituted.

The anti-independence campaign was always riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Nothing has changed since Thursday 18 September. Now we have unionists whining about demands for another referendum and demanding that politicians get back to the business of running country. They do so evidently oblivious to the fact that there is nothing more fundamental in politics than the constitution.

And unionists bleat about a so-called "neverendum" apparently dumbly unaware that they themselves are commending a course of interminable constitutional tinkering. The ink was hardly dry on the original legislation setting up the Scottish Parliament when the inadequacies of the settlement forced the British parties to set up the Calman Commission. Before the Calman proposals were even fully implemented the British parties were once again obliged to admit that they'd got it wrong and we had another spate of talking-shops cobbling together an incomprehensible, incoherent and largely unworkable mish-mash of constitutional sticking plasters and wire coat-hangers.

And now we have yet another talking-shop tasked with trying to come up with a set of proposals that at least make some sort of constitutional sense and have the appearance of offering meaningful reform.

This latest talking-shop will fail just as its predecessors did. It will fail because, like those went before, its overarching imperative is, not the formulation of a constitutional settlement that addresses the needs, aspirations and priorities of the people of Scotland, but the preservation of the structures of power and privilege which define the British state.

Whichever story of the referendum you choose to accept, one thing is perfectly clear. That story is still being written. This is not over. It will not be over until Scotland's rightful constitutional status is restored.

SPEAKING at the Labour conference, Darling claimed the First Minister's suggestion that there could be a parliamentary route to independence was "dangerous".

Peter A Bell's insight:

Darling and Lamont appear to be competing to see which of them can be the most vacuous and hypocritical. Darling seems dumbly unaware that there are political routes to independence other than by way of a referendum. And he says that the people of Scotland are sovereign whilst heading a campaign dedicated to denying that sovereignty.

Lamont, meanwhile, mouths an endless stream of platitudes about "change" having spent the entire referendum campaign fighting to preserve the old order and the old ways. And she disingenuously claims to want power for the people having sided with the ruling elites of the British state against the biggest popular movement in Scotland's history.

IN A timely and important column in this newspaper today, former SNP frontbencher Andrew Wilson calls on the Nationalists and their colleagues in the wider Yes movement to engage with new efforts to secure more powers for Holyrood “as builders, not wreckers”.

Peter A Bell's insight:

Is this the first time The Scotsman has acknowledged "the wider Yes movement"? Looks very much like they are trying to retrieve some of the credibility they lost during the campaign.

ALISTAIR Darling yesterday distanced Better Together from the ugly clashes in Glasgow's George Square, insisting those involved were not connected to the anti-independence campaign.

Peter A Bell's insight:

Alistair Darling chose to associate himself with these British nationalist thugs when he agreed to be the front-man for their vile, intolerant cause. He won't free himself of the stink of this association with a couple of squirts of political Febreeze.

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